Forget puppy love -- that's for kids. A new book, by married Berkeley authors Edith Ankersmit Kemp and Jerrold Kemp, makes a good case for love being the most glorious when it's discovered and experienced in one's twilight years.

In "Older Couples: New Romances: Finding & Keeping Love in Later Life" (Ten Speed Press, $14.95), the couple, who met when she was 66 and he 75, recount how they connected in 1996 with all the giddy enthusiasm of teenagers eyeing each other at a school dance.

Two years after his wife's death, Jerrold boldly wrote Edith a letter after hearing of her through mutual friends, hoping for an introduction. Although the letter was written more than five years ago, it might have been plucked from Match.com today:

"I would like to share my interests with a lady who is happy in jeans," he writes, "(who) likes to grow and pick her own fresh vegetables and fruits, but periodically would dress up to spend time together in other activities. Let's make contact and go from there."

Jerrold persuaded Berkeley resident Edith to come to his home in Mariposa after a hiking trip in Yosemite, and sparks flew.

A month later, Edith wrote the following poem:

Senior citizens are starting relationships later and later in life, mainly because Americans are living longer than ever before. According to the 2000 census, there are 9 million more citizens older than 65 today than there were in 1980.

Additionally, there are more single seniors, almost 17 percent more today than in 1980. And the number of women older than 60 who got married doubled between 1990 and 2000.

That's a lot of silver-haired dating. And according to the Kemps, it can be enormously rewarding. After interviewing more than a dozen couples about their late-life relationships, the Kemps concluded that "they have more joy, more freedom, greater affection, and better sex than in their earlier relationships. "

At the same time, anyone trying to make a serious relationship work knows there is a huge amount of work involved: compromise, communication, dealing with each other's bad habits.

This is true at any age, but arguably gets harder as the couple gets older. Imagine, then, the adjustments that need to be made when the couple are both seniors who have been living alone.

"Oh yes, when we moved in together, we had a lot of conflicts!" says Edith in a strong, gruff voice honed by years of working as a psychotherapist.

"When you're our age, you've had a lot of years to develop bad habits," agrees Jerrold, who taught at San Jose State. "She was always leaving lights on, and I was really messy."

The two did a search for books written for those involved in senior romances, and there were none. It gave them the impetus to write a book themselves.

"We began to wonder how other older couples forming new relationships made their adjustments," writes Jerrold. "What habits did they change? How did they learn to accept each other's behaviors?"

By advertising their study, they located couples who were willing to share their experiences -- both positive and negative.

"As we were putting together what we had learned from them, we kept hitting the same topics," says Edith. "A lot of people had the same issues we were having."

The resulting book is divided into three parts: case histories of couples who represent various types of relationships, a section on important topics for older couples (sex, finances, relationships with children and grandchildren) and a section on finding a mate if you don't have one.

"We wanted to include a section about single people who are interested in finding someone," says Jerrold, "because there are so many out there and so many opportunities!"

Included in the advice section: Beware of hasty actions after the death of a spouse, make sure you're ready for serious love, make a checklist of your ideal mate's qualities before you go looking, etc. Really, dating is not so different for seniors than it is for their grandchildren.

In the chapter on sex, Edith writes frankly and affectionately of sexual issues that may face older couples -- erectile dysfunction in men, menopausal symptoms that affect women -- while noting that all the couples she interviewed reported robust sex lives -- even those in their 80s.

She suggests that "older couples need to know that there are many other ways to achieve sexual arousal and even orgasm other than through intercourse, or in addition to intercourse."

She also notes that as couples age, they can still derive erotic bliss from physical affection like cuddling in bed.

In general, the Kemps found the following: Accepting your partner for who he or she is is key; sexual satisfaction is possible at any age; if adult children are not pleased with the relationship, your first commitment is still to your partner; and be aware that as your partner ages you may find yourself in a care-taking role.

Most of all, says Edith, "It's never too late to be in love."

Older couples

Edith Ankersmit Kemp and Jerrold Kemp will speak at 2 p.m. March 16 at the San Lorenzo Public Library, 395 Paseo Grande. For more information, call (510) 670-6283.